Hello hello hello!
It's April, and what a wonderful 4 months it has been since I returned to
Chicago after all my travels last summer/fall. I am happy to be a part of
several groups that are getting better and better each time we perform. These
are my latest updates….
The jazz quartet with Mike Allemana, Matt Ferguson, and
Jeremy Cunningham just recorded at Minbal Studio
in Chicago with engineer Benjamin Balcomb. The roughs sound really good, and
we’re looking forward to the mixing process with Brian Schwab
next week! We recorded our original music, as well as two songs written by the
masters of jazz – Billy Strayhorn’s Blood Count, and Charlie Parker’s Cheryl.
This record will be coming out in the summer for our performance at the ChicagoJazz Festival in September! We were glad to perform at the Chitown Jazz Festival to support Chicago hunger relief. You can see a couple moments from our performance, thanks to Harvey Tillis:
Also, Pedway (Matthew Golombisky and
Quin Kirchner) just went into the studio! We make it our business to improvise. Our first record,
Subventure (ears&eyes Records)
came out in 2007, so it was time for us to do another. We just recorded last
week with Brian Sulpizio at his space in Humboldt Park, and we’re going to be
mixing in the next coming months. My voice was lost during this session, so it
was super fun to take out all my would-be-vocalizations through my saxophone!
Maitri (Rob Clearfield – keyboard, Matt Ulery – bass,
Charles Rumback – drums) has been playing more and more shows! I’ve been
working closely with Elliot Ross (moongriffin) on some covers, as well. This
has been so good, and I’m pumped to keep going! You can hear a Sam Cooke cover
that we did on my bandcamp page.
We also just recorded Sam Cooke’s Chain Gang, currently working on mixing and
touching it up, so look out for it soon! Here's a picture (thanks to Leslie Beukelman) of us performing at Martyrs' in March.
As far as teaching goes, I just finished the Music
Psychology for Teaching and Learning Course at DePaul University. My students
inspired me this year, and we were able to get nitty-gritty on some of the
latest articles in the field. For the course, I used Psychology of Music: FromSound to Significance by Tan, Pfordresher, and Harre. I highly recommend this
text
for anyone who is interested in Music Psychology. I hope to continue my
teaching at DePaul in the years to come.
I’ve also been teaching more elementary education classes,
now at New Einstein’s Academy
in Bucktown. Today I witnessed two of the little 2-year-olds mouthing the words
to one of our songs – what a rewarding experience!
That’s it for now, but please visit my bandcamp page to check out
all the music I’ve been working on in the past few years, and keep checking
back for updates on my website. As always, thank you for your continued
support, and I’m looking forward to the future!
Much love,
Caroline
